Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday March 20, 2014 @08:02AM
from the watery-eye-in-the-sky dept.

An anonymous reader writes "China is reportedly now using 4 drones to spy on polluting industries, according to The Guardian. The unmanned aircraft can cover 70 sqkm during a two hour flight. According to the state-run China Daily newspaper the drones have helped the ministry 'resolve' over 200 environment-linked cases. The Ministry of Environmental Protection claims that it can tell the type of smokestacks to crack down upon from the color of the smoke."

Thank god the West doesn't have any problem with the wealthy and well connected being treated any differently to anyone else. Just think what sort of societal problems would be occurring on a daily basis were that the case.

The comments on this list really show America in a very unflattering light, sometimes. Fortunately I and many others are less superficial, so I know that most Americans are not complete idiots.

How about reading the article with a more open mind? It is after all about something that is a good idea: using some quite simple, cheaply available technology to do something that is potentially good for the environment. And while judging how poisonous smoke is by looking at it is not accurate, it still gives a

The idea that China is opposed to environmental protection espoused by so many people is pretty badly informed. China's policy is and always has been that it won't needlessly set itself back - but it'll glad do what it can, because it's not like their air pollution is just CO2 and harmless to their environment.

So chances are, the whole "China is building X many coal plants per week!" is a very short-lived trend, and when they can go nuclear + renewables, they're going to do it in a big way very quickly, since the benefits aren't represented in a model, they'll be represented in breathable air. Money doesn't much help you avoid 2.5um particulates no matter where you live. Not on any sensible scale.

So chances are, the whole "China is building X many coal plants per week!" is a very short-lived trend

That's a gross misrepresentation. It's "China is building X many coal plants per week without emissions controls!" If China actually gave a shit about emissions, then new construction and new products (like cars) would have strong emissions controls. They don't. So they don't.

Only Beijing has strong emissions standards, sort of like California in the USA before the federal government prevented us from increasing ours as we voted to do. Now our standards are not much different from other states. I won't be surprised if that happens for China as well. Also, I can find literally zero studies on this subject which are not from the Chinese government. Now, it's not like I trust my own government, but I double-extra don't trust China's. Their answer when you ask them if they're going

Money does help you to avoid PM2.5 (2.5um particulates). Sulfuric acid mist = blue plume. Sulfuric acid mist (from coal plant) can be controled using carbon ($) or caustic scrubbers ($$). Sulfur dioxide is a precursor to PM2.5 as well as acid rain - it can be controlled by scrubbers. Nitrogen oxides also are precursors to PM2.5 and ground-level ozone (smog) and can be controled by selective catalytic reduction ($$$). So saying money doesn't help - it does and so do the regulations put in place to enfoc

The point was more along the lines of the fact that virtually no attainable level of individual wealth can really sufficiently protect you, in a pleasant fashion, from local environmental and atmospheric pollution.